In a Cab After Three Pinot Noirs

The city looks different from a taxi gliding down the highway. Like a synopsis of itself.

The Sears Tower, where nine years ago, on a trip with friends from Kansas, I pressed my forehead to the window of the observation deck and said, "I've never seen so many things all at once," and Justin put his hand on the small of my back. I wanted him because he wanted me and when I went to Spain that summer for a study abroad program, I only thought of him when I saw a Jeep the same color as his parked outside a carnival in a beach town called Peñiscola. For a moment I missed his mattress on the floor in his room in the attic of that creeky, white house he lived in on 6th Street. In the cab I think of the morning we startled awake to find a triangle-shaped section from the stained glass window next to his bed had crashed to the floor. I picked it up and a shard dug into the top of my index finger. He pulled it out with a pair of tweezers. "Why'd you pick up a piece of broken glass?" he asked.

The cab passes a church in Bucktown and I think baroque, remembering that I learned what that word meant that summer in Spain. And I want to be back there, on Diagonal Street in Barcelona, when I was suddenly opened to the vastness of the world and the beauty of so many people living in one place, on top of each other. When it seemed there was time to waste on men who didn't matter and reason to pick up a piece of violet glass because it was glinting, fractured and lucent in the morning sun. When it seemed possible to view things from a distance, appreciating them for their allure and possibility, no need yet to examine the finer details, their role in the bigger picture.

But I see my city now from the highway, zipping past in a cab and I have that feeling again of seeing so many things all at once, but now they are almost a decade of my life. And the cab exits onto blocks that tell whole stories - months and years that I've lived, walking the sidewalks, unlocking the front doors, changing with each neighborhood and moving on. And it seems that so many parts of this city mean something to me now - the streets filling in with significance like a massive and Byzantine crossword puzzle - but there are still lines gaping with empty squares. And I wonder what the future holds for me here, with the past intersecting at every corner.

Comments

[deezee]

beautiful reflection...

[Cat]

Truly lovely.

[margaret]

wow

[Alison]

Beautiful.

[churlita]

Nice post. It's great that your city can hold all of your adult past inside it. I'm thinking maybe I should move to a bigger town.

[Mist 1]

I love this post. I just love it.

[TheGirlWho]

City Wendy is right! You are a fantastic writer. Glad to find you.

[Schnozz]

Here from City Wendy ... and you're brilliant. :)

[Cover Your Mouth]

My midwestern upbringing requires that I find some way to modestly dismiss these kind comments, so I'm gonna credit the booze for this post. Still, thanks.

[Neil]

I'm glad you didn't have four pinot noirs, because then you might have been too drunk to remember all these wonderful details.

[EEK]

That was really, really nice.

Everytime I'm in a cab going down Lakeshore Drive at night, I notice this classical style apartment building all lit up on top in a dramatic way that makes it look like the Louvre. I love it.

[Meg]

Now YOU are getting bookmarked!

[Nothing But Bonfires]

Whoa, my British upbringing requires that I do the same thing! Well, when it happens to me. Who knew?

[wordgirl]

I wish I had written that.

[kris]

Love, love, LOVE your writing. Stellar.

I'll be back!

[rebecca]

i love this. you first got me with Bucktown...and then it just got better. i was reading and kept saying "YES" god, i know how that feels. that moment.

love your writing.

definitely bookmarked you. you have a gift.

i'm in love with parts of wicker park. and chicago in general. the double door and pontiac hold great memories for me.